Handcart Trek

I wonder how many Youth Conference treks it will take before we will have walked to Zion?! Well, we're about 25 miles closer! Dale and Shelly were again Ma and Pa, and Scott was a Big Brother this time around. This year we trekked up on the Mogollon (Moe-gee-yon) Rim – Arizona’s "High Country." While the temperatures in the Valley of the Sun were in the high 90's, we enjoyed 70's and lows in the 30's. Practically perfect weather.... After assembling and loading our handcarts and eating a simple lunch, we hit the trail with gusto. Our "Family" included one of the Stake Presidency, so we were had the unenviable position as Last Wagon and the assignment to keep tabs on stragglers. We walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. We had a rest stop with a snack of granola bars, but somehow only received half our family’s allotment. No problem; we're strong! Up and down, sun and shade, rocks and mud.... We get word of another rest stop with apples! But by some horrible stroke of luck, they were all gone before the last couple wagons arrive. The sun dips below the horizon and on we trek; legs and feet are getting sore and on we trek; a beautiful moon rises lighting our way and on we trek. Finally we see flames in the distance – campfires? The pace picks up. Just as we close the gap in the train, we see men holding torches. They begin shouting mean things to us ‘Mormon varmints’ like, “You’re not welcome here,” and shooting their muskets and we have to move on! We finally pull into camp and are thankful that there is already a big campfire roaring and all we have to do is warm up our dinner. Just as soon as our family got some food into their hungry tummies, everyone fell exhausted into their bedrolls. We walked just over 16 miles that first day. The average for the actual handcart pioneers was 15 miles/day, but some days up to 25.

The second day the men were pulled out for the Mormon Battalion and the women had the challenge to work together to pull up a steep hill. That was when I definitely felt four years older than the last time I did this! That evening we camped next to a creek bed and some of our boys wanted to sleep in it. “No way,” I said, “a creek bed’s no place to be in flash flood country!” We had a great dinner of stew and scones, with honey and butter we made ourselves. After some square dancing and a family devotional, we hit the hay. At 3 AM it started to sprinkle off and on, and we “parents” scrambled to make sure that there were tarps over our family. Then the wind picked up and so did the rain, thunder and lightning! (Always remember that Momma Knows Best and never camp in a creek bed!) At 6 AM our trail boss came to each wagon and said, “Pack it up and head out as fast as you can.” Although the rain had let up, there were big, black ominous clouds in the distance. Our family was lightning fast loading our cart and we got to head out and not be last for a change! But our big brother from the Stake stayed behind to help until the last cart was out. The trail was a quagmire and after a few steps our shoes were twice as big as normal with caked-on mud. Then we’d kick it off just to start accumulating all over again! We admonished our family (a couple girls especially) not to let go of the cart because they would fall behind or slip and fall in the mud. A girl in Scott’s family asked him to play his harmonica while they walked that morning. I later heard that as he played “Come, Come ye Saints,” “A Poor Wayfaring Man,” and “Nearer My God to Thee” some faces were wet with tears rather than rain. At our final stopping point we unpacked, broke down the carts and loaded them on a truck and then were treated to a deluxe breakfast under a bowery. We had a damp, shortened solo time and then headed back to the Valley-O! We got to eat our Dutch oven peach cobbler with ice cream Sunday at the fireside. Two of Taylor Simons’ (Jerry & Ella’s grandson) awesome original songs were used for the slideshow! (If you’d like to hear them, let me know. We didn’t know how to get them on here….)